Between the Future and Now
by CloudyBlueSkies
Summary: Imbued with an unknown power, a young woman must navigate who she is and who she was meant to be, all while fighting with her prolific father and the public's distrust of her after the Battle of New York.


This was a whole new world for Steve Rogers. He could never have imagined a plane like this ever existing, especially after seeing Howard's flying car failures. The man who had picked him up, Coulson had been a strange combination of stiff and manic towards him since he had agreed to Fury's mission. Steve could tell that this man wanted to gush about the old days, he was glad they didn't. This was a new world for Steve Rogers and he was going to live in it.

"We are making a stop to pick up someone else," Coulson said, taking the seat next to him again after his latest pacing session.

"Who?" Steve looked down at the screen, wondering who would be put on this plane with him. Every single one of these people was fantastical in power. He was just a guy with a shield, how could he measure up to a green monster?

"She's not on your screen and she's not an Avenger, Stark asked for us to bring her on to hunt down the Tesseract. She's smart, we've had business with her before."

So he would feel inferior in a different way if Howard Stark's son considered this woman smart.

* * *

No one answered the door of the small apartment on the East Side. Coulson waved his hand and a keypad appeared. He typed in a code and the door unlocked. "Miss Taylor, it's Agent Coulson, I'm here to take you to SHIELD."

A very young woman appeared, she couldn't have been more than twenty years old. She had black hair and blue eyes and she was wearing what Steve now knew were exercise clothes. He had seen enough women walking around wearing those same leggings and loose sleeveless tops. He had expected someone older than this for such an important mission.

"Why?" Something was unsettling about her, "What's going on?"

She stepped into the light and he saw what was so unsettling. In the dim light, they weren't as visible, but she had a few scars on her face. They were in a symmetrical swirling pattern on her cheeks, forehead, and chin.

"We will tell you on the way. We need to leave now." Coulson seemed unperturbed by her appearance. He looked around the apartment. It seemed more comfortable than stylish, not what he would expect from the East Side in this century. He noted the bag on the couch, probably her workout bag but it seemed fuller than it should.

She grabbed a jacket and headed for the roof with them, leaving her packed bag on the couch.

Steve paused, putting a hand on Coulson's shoulder to stop him as well, "Before we get on that plane, how long ago did Loki find you?"

"Excuse me?" The girl turned and cocked her head a little, the barest smile on her face. "I'm not sure I understand."

Coulson pulled a gun on her, "He's right Miss Taylor, you've been acting strange and last time I checked, you had brown eyes, not blue."

The girl let out a small chuckled, the faint scars on her face glowing green, "I underestimated you both, I thought I'd make it to SHIELD before anyone noticed." Her hands moved and a disk of green energy formed between her hands.

"Put whatever that is down, this doesn't have to be a fight," Coulson ordered.

"Oh the fight is coming Coulson, but neither of you will be around to fight it." She threw the disk at them.

Steve pulled Coulson to the ground and then hopped back up. "You don't have to do this." He yelled at her.

"I'm afraid I do Captain Rogers." Her hands lifted and the green energy swirled around her and then she pushed it towards them. They were both blasted away from her and right in front of the Quinjet's ramp.

Steve picked up Coulson, "Get on the jet, now."

She was gathering up more of that green energy, the scars on her face were glowing and he could see that they also went down her neck and appeared again on her hands. As she gathered it, it seemed to flicker and she grabbed her hand as if in pain. Steve took the opportunity to follow Coulson on the Quinjet.

"No!" The girl screamed and the green energy grew larger as the ramp closed and the jet took off. Steve didn't see the energy, but the Quinjet shook as it flew off. Coulson was talking to the pilot in front and he turned to Steve.

"Who was that?" Steve demanded.

Coulson picked up a tablet and pulled up a file, "Kara Taylor. Her mother carved those lines into her as a child, I guess now we know why."

"Did you know she had these powers?"

"They must have been dormant. Loki could have done something to her, who knows. But this isn't good." Coulson pulled up a phone, "I have some calls to make."

* * *

Kara pulled out her phone, it was untraceable, on her father's network, she had set it up herself. It barely rang once before Barton answered, _"If you're calling me then I'm going to assume it didn't go well?"_

"They caught on a lot faster than I thought, they had Captain America, he's pretty smart for a 90-year-old." She opened the door to her apartment and grabbed the bag she had been packing, "I'm headed back to Selvig. Do you need me over there?"

_"No, I've got it handled."_

"Good." She hung up on him and did a quick survey of the apartment. This had been her home the last six months and she felt like she was finally settling in. But that didn't matter anymore. None of the things she had collected or friends she had made mattered anymore.

She traced one of the lines on her hands gently, so long she had covered them up with makeup and long sleeves. Long nights lying awake, wondering why this had been done to her. Now she saw it, she was part of a grander plan and she was important. She was resplendent. She was _powerful_.

* * *

Steve could tell none of this was going to work, not a single person seemed to want to be there or work with each other. Tony Stark most of all. After he stopped monologuing about how smart he was and talked to Dr. Banner for a moment, he looked over at Fury, "Where's Kara's lab set up? Nevermind, I will find it myself." He started walking off, Bruce following him.

Coulson stepped in front of them, "I have some bad news about Miss Taylor."

"What kind of bad news?"

Fury stepped in, "Maybe we should take this discussion to the lab."

"No, I think we are going to have it here, in the open, where everyone can hear it." Tony squared up with Fury.

Seeing this was going to go south, Steve spoke up, "Loki got to her first, she's under his mind control."

Tony turned to him, jaw agape. Fury wiped his face and Natasha put her head in her hands. "What?"

"Who is this Kara? And why does Loki want her?" Bruce spoke up.

Tony's fist clenched, and he turned on Fury, "You are SHIELD and you let this happen? What was the delay? I was very specific that she had to be picked up as soon as possible."

"We are going to get Miss Taylor and Barton back and to do that we have to find the cube." Fury insisted, "Now you better calm down and get to work."

"Or even better, we beat the information out of the bastard who took it," Tony turned to Thor.

"Loki will not speak." Thor said, "I am sorry about this, but direct confrontation is not the way to beat Loki. Finding the cube through other means is our best option."

"If you want to find her, get to the lab and find the cube." Fury said.

Natasha put a hand on Tony's arm as he left, "Barton won't let anything happen to her Tony."

"And I should trust your judgment why?"

A silence fell over them and then Tony turned on his heel and walked away, Bruce close on his heels. "Why is Tony so upset about her?"

"I would tell you to google it, but I don't think you know what that is." Natasha sat next to him, "She's his daughter."

* * *

Steve went to talk to Tony in his lab. The two scientists seemed to be in their element, so he didn't say anything at first. Looking around, Steve saw one of the screens was doing a search for Kara Taylor. "Who is she?" He asked, looking at the photo her smiling at him. You couldn't see the scars in the photo, she looked completely normal.

Tony walked up and swiped the screen away, "A smart kid. There is something fishy about all this."

"Did you know, about the powers that she has? You had to know about the scars."

He paused in his walk and turned around, "What are you talking about?"

Steve told him about his encounter with Kara. Tony's face went from neutral curiosity to absolute shock. "You're saying that Kara. . . has some kind of green energy power?"

"Her scars glowed when she used it."

Tony started pacing the lab, "What was she doing to make the energy? Did she have a conduit or something? Was it just her scars? I need more information."

"I've told you everything I know."

"Loki could have done something to her with the gamma radiation coming off the Tesseract." Bruce suggested, "It seems improbable but, then so am I."

Tony rubbed his face, "That bitch, she did something to her."

"Who?"

"Her mother, though, she's not worthy of the title. What kind of mother does that to her child?" He kicked over a stool, "I knew we should have hunted her down and put her in jail."

Something clicked in Steve's mind, "Are you her father?"

"She doesn't seem to think so." Tony waved the screen searching for her back to prominence on the screen, "I wasn't a very good one anyway, I understand why she thinks that."

"I didn't know you had a kid," Steve said.

"I was barely 21, she lived with her mom until she was 7, but then I had to take her away. Nothing is worse than looking at a little girl who can't understand why her mother would hurt her. She has been through hell her entire life and I didn't make it any better. Now Loki has her doing who knows what. I have to save her, it's my job."

* * *

Tony remembered the phone call in March 1992. He didn't remember giving her his number but the first words he heard were, "I'm pregnant, it's yours."

In retrospect, she had played him from the beginning. She knew he was a good man, somewhere down in there. She provided proof that the baby was his, even suggested DNA testing which was unreliable but improving. She hadn't asked for much, just her rent covered and for him to see the kid once a year on her birthday or at least one holiday. Tony had acquiesced easily. He could cover 1000 a month plus a little extra for the kid. He didn't want a baby, but he was okay with seeing the kid once in a while.

He didn't need DNA to know she was his. She had black hair and brown eyes where her mother was blonde and blue-eyed. He had quietly asked for her middle name to be Marie, some resemblance of his mother. He thought she would deny him, but she agreed. Ashley Marie Hansen was born September 19th, 1992 and Tony didn't see her for months. He wasn't interested in a newborn that couldn't do anything but cry and poop.

But as she got older he dropped in more than the agreement and paid more as well because he was secretly enamored with that girl. She was bright-eyed and vibrant just like he had been as a child. She was smart too, which made him proud. But then the mother dropped the hammer. He was hurting Ashley by not being around more and it was either all or nothing from now on. He chose nothing, and soon he wasn't entirely aware of where they even lived. They had moved states and left the grid behind. For two years he paid for her silence and their daughter.

Then the phone rang.

It was early morning in the winter, his bedmate for the night was still there, "Hello? Who is this?"

"Dad?"

"Ash?"

The girl was crying so hard she couldn't talk. "Help me, please. It hurts, everything hurts."

"Where is your mother? Let me speak to her."

"She's gone. She left. I had to wait for her to leave to call you. She hurt me."

"Where are you?"

She rattled off a street address she had memorized. She gave him a town when prompted. He called the police in that town and then immediately got on a plane. He found Ashley at the hospital. There were lines carved into her arms, pale scars all over her body in some kind of pattern. The most recent ones were on her stomach, still red. His fists clenched in anger. It was his fault, he had chosen nothing and the kid had suffered. He should have known.

She was malnourished, with foreign chemicals in her body. Ashley was too traumatized to tell much of what happened to her.

She refused to speak to child psychologists which went on for two years until one day she looked at him and said, "I'm done going to the doctor. And don't call me Ashley anymore, that's not my name." And so Ashley became Kara.

He couldn't do anything but as she wished. JARVIS became her watcher and confidant. He tried not to be distant, but it was much more difficult than he anticipated. Kara grew to resent him, just as he had his father. It was the cycle of the Starks that he couldn't avoid.

* * *

_"You don't know them like I do. If someone doesn't guard the cube, they will be able to stop it." Kara insisted. She glowed with pride that she was allowed in on Loki's grand plan. It was just her, Selvig, and Barton, his most trusted advisers. But she was different than the other two, she was special and she saw it every time he looked at her._

_"You are needed at my side, riding into this glorious battle. You are the most powerful weapon at my disposal."_

_She clenched her fist and it glowed green and then flickered out. She wasn't at her most powerful yet, "Their energies are going to be focused on the cube. I can beat all of them."_

_"Even your father?"  
_

_"Especially my father." She grinned viciously._

She stood next to Selvig as he installed the Tesseract. Getting into Stark Tower had been so easy. She knew the secret elevator code, Pepper was in DC, no one could tell her no. She was Kara Stark, after all, no one said no to a Stark.

"We'll be ready soon." Selvig stood up and looked out over the city, "I always hated New York, too crowded to be beautiful."

"Well, the new city we build will be beautiful." Kara's hands itched to bring down every building in New York. The energy flowed through her, under her skin like a thousand termites. It was a valve she couldn't turn off. But Loki could make it stop, he showed her, he praised her, he told her all of the secrets she wished to know. All of her machines, her little robot army, was pointless in the face of what she could do now. She could topple buildings, cities, worlds.

Her power was found in the space between and it was boundless. Mostly. Her mother had failed to complete the markings on her skin. Loki promised that when he ruled Asgard, he would find the ancient texts that would help her complete who she was meant to be.

* * *

Stars filled her eyes as the portal opened. A new age was beginning for this world and she would be the Stark to bring it to its knees. Part of her was proud but as she looked down at the destruction happening below, something curdled in her stomach. She was too far away to hear the screams and see the blood, but she felt the pain in her bones. _How many people have to die for this?_

As many as it takes.

She couldn't look away, this was the new era she was bringing into this world. Finally, chaos would be front and center in this world, not pushed to the side like a forgotten child. She couldn't just stand here and watch anymore, these people her father had collected to fight them were becoming too much of a problem. Besides, they were too focused on saving lives to make it to the Tesseract.

She circled her hands and a solid green disk appeared. "What are you doing?" Selvig asked.

"I'm going to fight." Kara stood up on the disk. This was a little too Green Goblin for her style, but it would have to do until she was more practiced and powerful.

She flew towards the Chrysler building where Thor had taken up a position to call lightning down from the heavens. She threw a disk at him and he let go to avoid it and flew away. Frustrated she started to go after him, but pain laced up her feet and the disk flickered long enough for her to start falling. She tried to make something, anything to stop her fall. _Loki will save me, I can't die._

Something came up behind her and grabbed under her arms and flew her up to the helicopter pad on Stark Tower. She turned to thank her savior, but it was Iron Man. The mask fell back from his face, "Kara what are you doing?"

"What I was meant to do Tony." She let a blast of energy go and he flew backward off the landing. She didn't stay to see if he made it, of course, he was still alive. She looked up and saw something jump off one of the Chitauri cruisers and onto the roof.

As she opened the door to the roof, she saw Natasha helping Selvig to his feet. "Traitor!" She yelled at him.

Natasha's way to get Loki's scepter was blocked by Kara, "Kara I know you don't want to do this."

"Loki has shown me what I am capable of, what Tony was scared of and what I was meant to do."

Selvig took a step forward, "Look around Kara this isn't right. Loki brainwashed us, we have to stop this."

Her hands glowed green, "I do have to stop this." She threw two bolts at them and they both jumped out of the way. Natasha sprinted towards her and knocked her back through the open door and down the stairs. Pain laced through her body and she went unconscious.

* * *

Kara blinked the spots out of her vision as she came back to consciousness. Her whole body hurt and itched and felt just awful. Then she remembered, Natasha had pushed her down the stairs.

She had been pushed down the stairs because she had helped a Norse god bring about the apocalypse.

She pulled herself up the stairs and back onto the roof, "Nat." The woman was holding onto Loki's scepter in front of the Tesseract.

"It's okay Kara, I've got this."

"What's happening, why aren't we shutting it down?" She joined Selvig at his station. Green energy sparked between her fingers and she looked at them, gods what had she done?

"A nuke is about to hit New York, we're going to send it up to the portal first.

"You did say you hate this city. How are we doing that exactly?" She looked up and saw the missile headed towards the portal, guided by a man in a red suit. She sprinted over to Natasha and ripped the comm out of her ear.

_"Dad, what are you doing?"_ Was the last thing Tony Stark heard through the comms.

"Sorry kid." He said even though he was pretty sure no one could hear. him

* * *

It was like she was frozen, watching her father go through the portal. She could remember being a child and sitting with him in his workshop while he taught her about engineering. She remembered him showing up at her first college graduation with Pepper, completely sober and in a baseball hat. A baseball hat on Tony Stark! He had been there for her when it was important, even though it wasn't always altruistic.

"He's falling."

Kara took off running and jumped off the roof, "No!" Nat yelled. She ran after and saw Kara jumping from a series of green disks down to the ground with ease.

She landed with her feet on the ground, adrenaline pumping and the itching under her skin gone. Her momentum carried her to the limp form of Iron Man. Someone had ripped his mask off and everyone was just standing around looking upset. "Do something!"

Hulk roared in Tony's face, scaring him back to life and nearly scaring the life out of her. He coughed and looked around, "What just happened? Please tell me nobody kissed me."

"Are you okay?" She knelt next to him.

"I'm good kiddo. Hungry through, ever tried Shwarma?"


End file.
